Beginning with some words to know, one learns about the life of pigs on a farm.  Simple text tells what pigs like to eat and what they like to do.  Photographs are focused and colorful.  Most have captions that provide additional information.  This short 24-page book provides many clear facts and quality photos that raise it above other typical nonfiction animal books.  Other books to read, websites, and an index are included.

This 32-page book tells of the diverse land forms, the basic groups of indigenous people, and culture of this island country.  It is packed with information, many facts useful as-is, others invite further investigation, if desired.  Maps, colorful photographs, “Did You Know” sections, and “Fun Fact” boxes, along with informative paragraphs fill every page.  Photos are labeled or clarified in the text.  Bold words are defined in the glossary.  A page of fast facts are in the back with books to read, a factsurfer website, and an index.  This book provides plenty of facts for those looking for a quick introduction to a fascinating country.

Mr. Tate’s class gather on the beach to help on Clean-up Day.  They meet Captain Ned, who explains how important the ocean is to the health of the planet.  They listen to the ocean and become aware of the animals who call the ocean home and depend on it being clean: one whale, two giant sea turtles,… to 10 bottlenose dolphins.  On shore, they collect 10 bags of trash as they think about the water cycle and pollution.  Plants and animals that live in the ocean provide food for people, resources for medicines, and clean air for all.  The class also goes out on Captain Ned’s boat to scoop up floating debris.  The message that everything in the natural world is connected and that people need to be responsible for their actions is repeated throughout.  A final page gives more in-depth information on how the world’s climate and weather rely on a healthy ocean.  Sarah Snow’s digital collage illustrations are colorful and full of texture and light.  They provide strong visual images to accompany the message of protecting our ecosystem.  Good resource for explaining the importance of being responsible care-takers of our world.

In 1936, a young Joe DiMaggio’s skills were to be tested  before being accepted on a major-league team.  The greatest pitcher in the 1930s was Satchel Paige, who was only allowed to play in the Negro leagues.  An exhibition game was scheduled.  Paige’s skills as a pitcher and batter kept the game close, even though his team was much more inexperienced than the opposing team of major-league stars.  Suspense builds as Satchel Paige throws his amazing “bat dodger”, “wobbly ball”, and his whipsey dipsey do”.  Joe DiMaggio was up to bat four times before her was able to make it to first base.  Both players proved they had what it takes to be placed among the best.  Floyd Cooper’s amazing artwork in muted tones is a good match for this retelling of a day in baseball history.  The illustrations are action packed and full of emotion.  Great book as a spring-board for discussions on the sport, about segregation, or during Black History month.

As first introduced in Diary of a Wombat, this mostly sedentary wombat arouses during the Christmas holidays to the smell of carrots.  In his typical low-key humor, he continually fights “strange creatures” (reindeer) for his favorite food (carrots).  Finding a good place to nap (Santa’s sleigh), he soon discovers these strange creatures are terrific at finding carrots all over the world!  Bruce Whatley’s humorous illustrations show this irresistibly charming wombat’s confrontations in a variety of situations.  This delightful book will appeal to people of all ages.

In the early 1800s, Molly Williams was a cook for Mr. Aymar and his volunteer firefighters.  One winter, when many volunteers were ill with influenza, a house caught fire.  Molly rushed out, gathered boys to warn others, and raced to the equipment shed.  She put on a helmet, gloves, and “splatterdashes”, assisted the struggling men pull the pumper to the fire, fill it with buckets of water, and pull burning wood away from the house.  Molly is known as the first female volunteer firefighter.  There is an author’s note and some frequently asked questions and answers in the back.  Both author Dianne Ochiltree and illustrator Kathleen Kemly attempted to portray Molly and the early firefighters as accurately as possible.  There is an extensive list of books to read, websites and links, places to visit, and a bibliography included.  Many historical facts are included in the story and represented in the illustrations.

The first three-fifths of this book about social networking is devoted to methods of communication – how Americans historically have formed communities. It begins with cave painting and wampum and eventually moves to the printing press and the telegraph. But it is only the last 20 or so pages that talk about what our students would recognize as social networking. And 20 pages is hardly adequate for a thorough discussion of media fandom, gaming, the World Wide Web, the Information Superhighway, blogging, YouTube, and devices such as smart phones. The title is misleading and students will be disappointed if they expect much information on what they consider social networking.

Bold and colorful paintings of animals and trees of the Kalahari Desert help tell the tale of friends Ostrich and Lark.  Ostrich and Lark spend each day together, wandering under the African sun.  Lark sings and flits as Ostrich remains silent.  One day, Ostrich surprises Lark and the veld by booming his own powerful voice.  Marilyn Nelson begins the book with a note about the !Kung San, one of the many indigenous people of South Africa.  The paintings are done by six members of the Kuru Art Project of Batswana.  Broad, colorful strokes in vibrant oranges, reds, greens, blues, and browns create vivid images which complement this simple tale.

What a fun introduction to rules and routines in a kindergarten classroom!  A little girl loves school and one day invites her mom to stay.  She is shocked when her mom enthusiastically joins in – blurting answers, being messy, not following expectations…  She constantly reminds her mom how to behave and be appropriate so all children can learn and share.  Mom admits that kindergarten is hard work and that she should probably stick to doing big-people jobs.  Her daughter gave her a hug and told her she was really good at being a mom – then gently reminded her to get in line so the class could be dismissed.  Mike Lowery’s expressive cartoon-style illustrations are a perfect match for the many classroom activities in kindergarten.

Lena Blackburne wanted to play baseball and become famous.  He played on many professional teams but was just an ordinary player.  He did, however, become famous.  As a coach, he learned that new baseballs were too shiny to throw and too hard to see.  Different methods used to break them in were unsatisfactory.  One day while fishing, he stepped into some soft, gooey mud that was slightly gritty.  He rubbed the mud on baseballs and let it dry.  When he rubbed it off, the baseballs had lost the shine and were not soft or smelly.  The “new” baseballs were easy to throw and see.  Lena Blackburne’s baseball mud mad him famous.  To this day, Lena’s mud is the only substance allowed on major-league baseballs.  Although Lena Blackburne never made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame, his mud did!  A short author’s note adds more information about the famous mud but not the secret to what makes it work.  Illustrations by Oliver Dominguez are large, colorful and depict the energy and emotions of the sport.

Merle is 18 and ahead of her time in 1978.  Head strong but a drifter at heart, art school seems like the perfect path out of her isolated Appalachian upbringing.  But she flounders, drops out, lives in poverty and steals spray paint to graffiti her Radiant Days tag around town.  Her sexuality is explored, but is not the intent of the novel.  Instead, readers are introduced to Arthur Rimbaud circa 1870– Merle’s cosmic twin.   Hand switches to writing in 3rd person as readers look through a window into the poet’s turbulent teen life.  Chapters then switch back and forth between Merle’s 1st person voice and Rimbaud’s 3rd until the two finally meet.  Driven together by a magic key and a lock house, the two learn about each others art and ultimately about themselves in the course of one night in which they cross between 1978 and 1870.  Leaping through that mystic void of time allows each to see that they have a purpose in their own lives that will focus their art.  Hand’s writing is very lyrical and allows for introspective opportunities for the read as well.  A daunting novel to attempt, this is a heady work that artsy high school students will grapple with and most likely enjoy.

I remember the red poppies sold by Veterans ever since I was a child but did not know the significance of the flower.  After WWI, in France, thousands of soldiers who sacrificed their lives for freedom lay and each spring are covered in a blanket of red poppies.  Moina Michael was a patriotic professor at the University of Georgia, and near the end of WWI, determined to remember those fallen heroes, made the red poppy the ‘miracle flower’, a remembrance of those who were gone.  Veterans for decades have sold the flowers near Veterans and Memorial Days, the proceeds going towards helping veterans and their families.  Sadly, after reading this book, I looked online for more information about Moina Michael and on a website from the UK found almost the whole story verbatim that was written in this book.

Well, Albert Pujols is a good-looking guy, born in the Dominican Republic and plays terrific baseball.  That’s all this book tells you.  Since Pujols is a current major-leaguer, I don’t mind having this book on the shelf.  However, guys this good usually earn mega bucks.  So what does Pujols do with all that money?  Most guys have a foundation or charity or kids club they are involved in, but there is no mention at all of anything personal about Pujols in this book.  Not one single personal factoid.  Usually guys like this are role models for kids, but what has he done other than play baseball.  Also, a minor gripe, but a separate caption mentioned that lots of boys growing up in the Dominican Republic play baseball–couldn’t you have included a map to show where DR is located?

The youngest in your school will immediately recognize that Eddie does NOT know how to get ready for school.  This book pretty much illustrates all the things you’re not supposed to do on a school morning.  Great conversation starter for parents.

Woodstock is part of the Peanuts gang, and in this book, Woodstock and his friends are out camping with Snoopy as their scout leader.  Snoopy is going to teach his scouts survival skills, but no skills are here, only humor.  Kind of dorky, but the illustrations are priceless.  In my mind, I made up a better story to go along with the colorful illustrations than what was printed.  Kids will enjoy looking at the pictures.

This book seems to have been written by two different people.  I say that because the first part of the book is about how Tara and her talking kitten are taken by fairy friends to meet a mermaid, who then takes them to meet creatures from under the sea.  She finds out that they are angry about how people/humans are polluting their waters and killing them and want Tara to do something about it.  Then there are some silly shenanigans that don’t have anything to do with or add to the story.  Tara gives a report at school about the ocean and how important it is to keep it clean and gets her classmates excited about it.  The other chapters are small separate stories about how Tara and her fairy friends help to keep her friend from drowning and how she helps an elderly neighbor connect with her family.  The whole book was rather disjointed and all over the place.  The messages were purposeful and clear: keep our water clean, be honest, help our neighbors and the elderly.  Little girls more into fairies and such rather than good writing will read this.

Not too many people, other than Brits, use the word horrid anymore, but we could say ‘Horrible Henry,’ and kids would understand.  Henry is a real stinker but in the first chapter, he wonders what would happen if he were perfect, like his brother, Peter.  The results are hilarious!  In the following chapters, we find out how Henry gets his way by being really horrible.  Kids will think it’s hilarious, but I hope it doesn’t give them ideas.  A great beginning reading book.

BOM! went the bear, playing a big bass drum!  And along comes monkey, turtles, giraffes, frogs, elephants, and so on.  Everyone wants to join in the music parade, which doesn’t make bear so happy.  Parts of the book have a melody or rhythm from the words, but there are breaks and it makes it hard to pick back up.  It would take practice to have kids join in with the sounds, but they would enjoy making the loud and soft sounds and other different sounds as shown in this book.

Dressing up is fun!  All little kids love to pretend to be a grown-up ‘something’.  In this story, Little Hippo pretends to be Doctor Hippo and he goes around to all the jungle animals pretending to check them over.  Crocodile snapped at him, hyena was ticklish, elephant sneezed on him, and lion scared him.  Maybe it isn’t so fun being grown up, he thought.  This is definitely a ‘feel good’ story as Little Hippo goes home and mom makes everything better.  This is a terrific book to read at bedtime.

Fairy Marie is tiny, somewhat like Thumbellina, and lives on a red poppy flower.  Her friends are also tiny and, together, they are preparing for fall.  The illustrations in this book are absolutely spectacular and I find myself studying the lacy insect wings and butterfly wings as well as all the humanistic qualities of these tiny creatures.  The story, originally written in Dutch, has been translated into English and occasionally seems a little awkward.  But that easy to overlook because of the beautiful illustrations.  Marie needs to find a new house for winter, but finds a home and friends and family, as well.  Heartwarming.  Kids into fairies will love it!

Animals in Fall: Preparing for Winter is a nonfiction picture book teaching young readers about some of the changes that happen in autumn.  This book is divided into five chapters, each with a specific theme, and has a table of contents, glossary, and index.  What I like particularly about this book is that it groups animals into three categories: those that migrate, those that hibernate, and those that change, and gives beautiful examples of each category.  This book is a terrific way to study seasonal changes as well as introduce nonfiction books.

Earth Day Every Day is a non-fiction picture book intended to gently teach young children to take care of our Earth.  There is a table of contents indicating three separate chapters with distinct themes, as well as an index and glossary at the back.  The language is simple and understandable for young students and the illustrations do a good job of visualizing the message.  The illustrations can be used as a teaching tool to help students find examples of the messages being taught.  The message is clear and simple and this book is a good example of introducing nonfiction to the youngest of readers.